The current goal of the technology department is to provide all students with an educational environment in which they can learn life skills that will enable them to use current and future technological resources and equipment. North Smithfield is committed to prepare students through technology by:

Schedule equipment upgrades throughout the district;

Providing all students with opportunities to experience individual technology time with students in grade K-6 by providing student equipment within the classroom and the building’s media center, and students in grades 7-12 receiving at least five hours of technology instruction per week;

Providing all students and staff with a wide variety of technological training and experiences.

It is the long-term plan of Technology Office to maintain and upgrade the technology as necessary to provide students the equipment for advanced multi-media communications. It is our goal to have students able to not only use the technology, but to use the technology to help themselves become lifelong learners. Technology has become an integral part of society, so students must know how to use this tool to achieve maximum success. Technology will be upgraded and maintained to ensure maximum benefits to the students. Students will use the technology available as one additional way to expand their learning environment. We plan to continue to expand our wireless initiatives and provide more mobile devices to all grade levels over the next three years.

Click on the link above to learn more about the many services that the NSPS technology office provides. This biannual electronic publication also has many important reminders, technology tips and resources for staff, parents and students.This publication also showcases many of the great ways that technology is being used to enhance instruction in North Smithfield. The world our children face is rapidly changing, requiring new skills and preparation to be ready for college, career and citizenship. This publication shows how North Smithfield Schools is greatly enhancing the learning velocity, achievement and depth of learning of our students.

Launched a Custom Facilities Service Request SystemPosted 11-1-2017Over the Christmas break we plan to launch a beta version of a custom coded ticketing system for our facilities department. This will save the district the annual cost of our current vendor as well as streamline the process of capturing service requests. It also will allow our facilities director to quickly prioritize and delegate certain requests.

New ActivTables Installed Posted: 10-1-2017Over the course of the last few weeks the IT staff has assembled six new Promethean ActivTables for all of our LBC classrooms and our Pre-K classrooms. This multi-touch interactive table allows up to six learners to simultaneously use individual tools, web browsers and resources as their personal efforts move the group toward accomplishing a common goal. It has apps specifically designed for Math, Science, Life Skills and many other content areas.

New Phone System Installed Posted: 9-1-2017Over the course of the summer a new phone system was installed. It took much planning, preparation and training to ensure a smooth transition onto this new IP Centrex based system. This new phone system offers better redundancy for system fail-over and many new functions that our staff will benefit from. Were still in the process of learning all of the new features of this system and plan to enable more functions shortly.

Revised Approach to Data Automation Posted: 6-1-2017​​Over the last few years we have been dependent on a third party vendor to assist with the transfer of our student data into our various school related systems. In this upcoming year we plan to tackle these functions in house to increase our student data security as well as save the district the yearly cost of maintenance for these third party services.

New NSPS Technology Club Posted: 6-1-2017​​Last year we had much success with our coding club in our district. Over the next year we plan to broaden the scope of this club to more general technology related topics. We have already gained much interest from our students. A listing of events is posted in our Google classroom and we plan to tailor future events based on student’s interests. ​

Phasing in of Windows 10 Posted: 5-1-2017​​Windows 10 has currently been tested on a few administrator’s workstations as well as some of our PC lab machines. Over the summer break we plan to provide some professional development of Windows 10 for our teachers as well as upgrade many of their workstations over the summer.

Successful Start to PARCC Testing Posted: 5-1-2017​​We had a very successful start to our first few days of PARCC testing. No major technical issues were encountered during rehearsals, however we optimized the wireless network performance in certain locations. We are anticipating an issue free PARCC assessment experience for our students. We wish all of our students the best of luck during this year’s assessment.

Demonstration of ActivePanel Display Posted: 5-1-2017​​A new Promethean ActivePanel Display has been installed in the MS library over the last few weeks. We hope to expand the use of these devices in our other libraries. Click Here for a link to a video overview of the product https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqvVASolrvk​The panels are driven by the Android OS and have access to the vast, ever-expanding world of over 500,000 educational apps that found in the Google Play / Android Marketplace. We plan to align the use of many of these apps with the common core state standards.

Going Virtual With Google Expeditions Posted: 1-9-2017​​Last year a Google representative visited Halliwell to demonstrate the latest product called Google Expeditions. The students were captivated by this VR experience as they were able to virtually explore some distant locations. Later this year we plan to acquire a Google Expeditions Kit for shared usage throughout the district.

Incorporation of new OSMO devicesPosted: 1-9-2017​We are in the process of piloting a few new digital devices called OSMO. OSMO is a learner-led iPad game system that uses physical objects and learning tools in conjunction with the iPad. It fosters student learning in key areas like Social-Emotional, Creative Thinking, STEM, and Common Core.

Northsmithfieldschools.com Website FaceliftPosted: 1-9-2017A special thank you for all those that helped with the facelift of the website. We have received much positive feedback about the new responsive design. Also a special thank you to Mr. St. Jean for his suggestions about incorporating the collaborative tools of Google drive into the design and for assisting with the migration of the extensive digital content.

Finalizing Plans for “One-to-One” at NSHS Posted: 11-5-2016We are finalizing our plans to implement a “One-to-One” program at the NSHS. As you are aware there are many factors to consider, storage, charging, electrical needs, filtering from home, repairs and how best to distribute devices. The framework of the plan is coming together as we have had numerous discussions with teachers, parents, students and administrators about what we feel will work best in our district and what has worked well in the surrounding districts.

Preparing for Email Migration Posted: 11-1-2016 ​The office is currently planning for the migration of our email services over to the G Suite Gmail Service. Training of our administrative staff on this new email service has already begun. We also plan to conduct a few additional PD sessions on this service for our teaching staff before the migration date which is scheduled for November 18th.

Northsmithfieldschools.com Website Overhaul Posted: 10-15-2016​Our existing website utilizes a content management system that has served us well over the last five years. It is however starting to become an older CMS and we plan to upgrade this server as well as update the look and feel of the website. We are still striving to have the site revised by late December. The new site will have a fresh new look to it and will responsive to mobile devices like cell phones and tablets. Numerous site themes and platforms have been considered and actions to start migrating content are soon under way

Summer Projects & Welcome Back Posted: 8-29-2016​The Technology Office had many projects that were addressed over the summer. Some of these projects included, upgrading our server operating systems to the latest OS versions, “re-imaging” the computer labs, upgrading teacher workstations, updating our equipment inventory, giving many of our devices a thorough physical cleaning, working on optimizing the flow of student data and migrating our existing student data over to the next academic year. We have also migrated our administrative offices from the Kendal Dean building over to the NS Middle School. We are looking forward to the return of our teachers and students as well as a successful start to the upcoming school year

Virtual Field Trips and Math Based Robotics Posted: 3-30-2016 ​​Google visited Halliwell elementary school on March 30th with the assistance of Deana Cook (one of our many tech savvy teachers). Deana, helped to arrange a visit for a Google representative to stop by and demonstrate their latest VR technology by providing virtual field trips for our students. Deana also has been utilizing our district iPads in conjunction with her “Dash & Dot” robots to teach her common core math standards to her classroom.

NSHS Receives a Network Upgrade Posted: 6-3-2016 ​The networking hardware at the NSHS was upgraded in early June. This new hardware will ensure stable network services for years to come at NSHS. ​

NSES Received a Much Needed Network Upgraded- Posted: 3-30-2016On Friday March 25th the Technology office with the assistance of ePlus technology upgraded the networking hardware at NSES. This new hardware will allow us to fully utilize the new wireless access points provided by the state funded WCI project. This new hardware will provide stable network operations for many years at NSES.

Processing of New ChromebooksPosted: 3-2-2016​The Technology Office has been hard at work processing the arrival of the new Chromebooks that we received a few weeks ago from the funds approved in the January 19th SC meeting. All of these Chromebooks have now been unboxed added to our online inventory system and labeled appropriately. These new devices will likely be in the hands of our students within a few weeks. We greatly appreciate the School Committee’s support to move forward with this initiative. These Chromebooks perfectly match the academic requirements to meet the state common core standards.

Configuration of PTO Donated Chromebooks Posted: 12-29-2015Over the past week the Technology Office has been hard at work unboxing and enrolling the generous donation of Chromebooks from the PTO. These new Chromebooks will aid our younger students become more proficient at keyboarding as well as a variety of other skills. Thank you Mary Crowshaw and the rest of the members of the PTO for this

iPad App InstallationsPosted: 12-7-2016 In November we pushed out over 100 educational apps to the iPads at NSES. These apps will help to improve our student skills with writing, reading, character recognition and mathematics. We are using a new mobile device management service provided by Cisco to remotely deploy these applications to our iPads in the district. We have had much luck with this service and plan to use it to deploy more applications over the next few months.

Open Technology Hour SessionsPosted: 6-3-2016 ​The NSPS Technology Office has been hosting “Open Technology Hour” sessions at the end of the school day at each of our schools.At these times staff members are encouraged to - Share any new teaching strategies that involve technology - Talk about the latest educational technology news & trends - Ask any questions in regards to our SIS system (infinite campus) - Address any outstanding service requestsSo far these sessions have been very beneficial to our teaching staff as we have been able to answer many technical questions and provide our staff useful tips and advice. These sessions have also been informative to ourIT staff as well allowing us to learn how we can better serve our teachers.

Conversion of Halliwell Computer LabPosted: 10-26-2015​The Halliwell computer lab is currently undergoing a transition from a traditional lab model to a space that is more fluid and open with a variety of different technologies to use. This new model will allow our teachers to use this common area to apply modern teaching practices like “Blended Learning” and “Station Rotation”. We were pleased to see that the space is already being utilized. Ms. Cook one our many technology savvy teachers was recently using the space and recently wrote “In this 5th grade lesson on Computer Coding. Students will learn the importance of coding, how to organize steps in a process of coding and applying those steps in a practice “Angry Birds” game through code.org.” She was using a variety if technologies including Chromebooks and iPads. We have some additional hardware that we plan to install in the location over the next few months as well.

New Secure Print Feature Posted: 9-20-2015​Throughout the district our larger copiers/printers now have a new "Secure Print" feature. This feature allows a staff member to provide a PIN code before they send a print job. Their print jobs will then be stored in the printer's memory until they reenter their PIN code while they are at the printer. This will allow our staff members to utilize the more cost effective copiers while still being able to print confidential documents. A resource link is available on our intranet site if you are curious about learning more about this feature.

Wireless Classroom Initiative Phase II ​ Posted: 9-8-2015We are currently working with a vendor to start working on the second phase of this state funded project. This vendor is currently working on some revised coverage maps of our wireless in our schools to identify the best locations for some new access points. The second phase will allow us to better cover common areas outside of classrooms that the first phase of this project addressed.

Summer Maintenance and Teacher Technology Institute ​ Posted: 7-29-2015 The NSPS technology staff has been hard at work performing some needed maintenance on our technology infrastructure over the summer. We have upgraded our email service, file services and desktop imaging services over the last few weeks. We have also been collaborating with the other districts in the North West Consortium to once again offer the Teacher Technology Institute.

Custom Coded Service Request System ​ Posted: 6-9-2015Our current service request system has not been upgraded is quite some time and we have partnered with the NSHS coding club to help rebuild this web application. They have already done a great job designing and coding the forward facing staff request form. We are currently in the testing phases of this application and plan to have it in production by the end of the month. By building this application in house we will be saving the school department $995 annually and have a solution that is custom to our needs

PTO iPad Donation​ Posted: 6-9-2015 Over the last few weeks the Technology Office has worked diligently to quickly unbox, configure and inventory 50 donated iPads from our PTO that are destined for use at our elementary locations.​All 50 iPads have now been delivered and are pre-configured with a MDM (Mobile Device Management) solution which will allow us to remotely push out desired apps to these devices from one central location. We are very excited about this new type of technology and more importantly the academic impact that these devices will have in our classrooms.

School Committee Report ​ Posted: 2-15-2015On Tuesday February 10th the Director of Technology updated the current school committee members of all the positive technological progress we have made so far in the 2014/2015 school year. &nbsp;Also at the same time the director raised awareness for the need for additional staffing for desktop technicians. &nbsp;To view the power point presentation of the presentation click the following link.

Chromebook Distribution​ Posted: 1-25-2015Last week was very exciting as we distributed the first Chromebook carts to our students. Many teachers were also eager to start utilizing them in their classrooms and began to start training their students for the upcoming PARCC test. These Chromebooks will eventually be pre-loaded with many educational apps and integrate perfectly with out Google Apps for Education initiative.